A coupling device for purposes of coupling a transport module with a process module is described in KR 10 2009 0 017 887 A. The coupling device consists of two coupling ducts, each having walls, which have flange plates that can be brought together in a plane parallel manner. One of the flange plates is elastically connected with the related wall of the coupling duct.
A coupling duct formed from a frame, which has a flange plate, which can be tilted as a result of an elastic connection with a frame-type wall of the coupling duct, is described in U.S. Pat. No. 8,097,084 B2.
In EP 0 891 629 B1 a transport module is described, which can be displaced between a plurality of process modules. The process module possesses a flanged connector, onto which a flanged connector of the transport module can be flanged. Here the sealing faces of the flange plates must be located against each other in a plane parallel manner. The flanged connector of the process module and the flanged connector of the transport module each form a coupling duct; in the coupled state they are aligned with one another and form a loading and unloading duct. The said duct is evacuated. Closure devices are then opened, which otherwise close off the coupling duct from an inner chamber. The chamber of the transport module is then connected with the chamber of the process module, such that by means of a gripper, which is associated with the transport module, a susceptor, which carries semiconductor discs that are coated, or that are to be coated, can be transported through the loading and unloading duct. Since the transport module is movable, in general terms no plane parallelism exists between the two flange plates. In the prior art, for purposes of compensating for an angle tolerance or a distance tolerance between the flange plates, an elastic intermediate element is provided in the form of a bellows.
The latter extends in the axial direction with respect to an axis defined by the extensive direction of the loading and unloading duct.
The task underlying the present invention is that of configuring a more compact transport module, wherein, however, the adaptability of the flange plate to tolerances remains intact.